What the hell is a Snooki? Honestly, when I first started hearing the name, I thought it was some kind of mascot, not just some dopey loudmouth volunteering to be pilloried and paraded around like the village freak, totally oblivious to the real nature of her “fame”.

If I was unread in the popular culture back in ’93, I must be functionally illiterate in it by now.

Let’s consider Justin Bieber. Even from my cave, I know who this kid is. I think it goes without saying that his music is saccharine pap. But what is really interesting is the vitriol that his name conjures up. If you walked into a high school today, pointed at some random 15 year-old boy, and screamed “FAG!”, people would think you’d gone off your meds. For some reason, it seems that people think that poor little Justin is fair game.

Justin Bieber’s forgettable music isn’t the problem. The problem is that we give a damn.

To say that our culture is driven by celebrity is a tired insight. This isn’t anything new; every age had its revered athletes, actors, musicians, artists. The madness is that today, the very idea of celebrity has been subverted. Celebrity has become a tautological concept. Why is Paris Hilton famous? Because she’s famous! She was the tip of the iceberg in the solipsistic degeneration of celebrity.

Jump to my elevator ride to work.

The 15-second news flash on the little monitor displayed a story about last weekend’s big box office releases. What information was displayed? Ticket sales. How the revenue compared to projections. This is a bit like reading a restaurant review that focused only on the sales figures for Friday night’s rush.

Jump to “The Learning Channel”.

A show about a bakery showcases the snarky and quasi-scripted, pseudo-authentic interactions of a bunch of pastry chefs. A show about little people showcases the snarky and quasi-scripted, pseudo-authentic interactions of a bunch of little people. A show about parking officers showcases the snarky and quasi-scripted, pseudo-authentic interactions of a bunch of parking officers.

Wait, what?

Jump to what we have to look forward to.

Art isn’t the work, it is the gallery.

Celebrity isn’t the actor, it is the agent.

History isn’t in the textbooks, it is in the balance sheets.

Jump to the next tab, the next clip, the next meme.

We’re so busy being titillated, we don’t care where the next jump will land us.

About The Writer

Alan Smithee alansmithee

Alan Smithee is a controversial, sometimes shallow, persnickety, abrasive, overly-sentimental, hyper-opinionated, misanthrope whose writing totally, seriously, not kidding, has absolutely no connection to the Zouch editors whose writing style he so perfectly mimics for some reason.

Matt, once again you have articulated the thoughts of an infinite many misanthropes, skeptics, realists and old-schoolers. We share the same fears, rest assured, you are not alone. We are holding onto rocks while everyone else holds on to the wind. They have no idea where they are being blown to, whether they care or not I don’t know, while we stay in the same place, getting left behind wondering where they are going, but not caring at all to join them.

My personal feeling is that the real danger lies in the impact of this kind of tauto-celebrity on young minds. Take someone like me, for example; I wouldn’t call myself old, but I’m old enough that this kind of sleazy entertainment really does just entertain/titillate.

Take someone who is sixteen right now, though, and you have to wonder, how different is his/her concept of celebrity, since he’s grown up in a world in which it’s defined so strangely.

And since people always tend to strive for celebrity, the real pickle is: how do these warped concepts of what it means to “matter” translate into the individual, group, cultural, and political actions of the new generation?

I have guessed, and for that reason, plan to move to the middle of the woods.

Oscar Figueroa

I’m irritated by how much some people emote over the lives of celebrities–it is certain that most of these fans have no personal relationship with them. It seems reasonable to me that these celebrities are like characters in a novel, where the reader so intrigued by the life of his protagonist is determined to keep reading until his interest fades.

If that analogy is believable, than I will say that those novels do not interest me, though there are many people who will keep on reading while discussing such stories with other members of their “book-club”, also known as “most of America”.

Well said. It is fascinating to see how people feel a personal connection with celebrities even though, as you pointed out, they have none. I suppose it might all be a matter of looking for role models; perhaps the problem is that we need better stock from which to chose them.

Things we like

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